Negotiating Borders
...themes in multiple books. These borders symbolize struggles and hardships that people have gone through while being themselves in a society that sees them differently or tries to make them someone that they are not. In Pudd’nhead Wilson, Black Boy, and The Woman Warrior there are multiple similarities and differences in the manner these borders are confronted and handled.
Pudd’nhead Wilson provides a good example of race, cultural, and language borders. Throughout the book as Tom grows up as a black man and chambers as a white man, they each quickly learn what they think will be borders for the rest of their lives. Tom grows up learning his black dialect which immediately becomes a language border that sets him apart as a black man. This is a strong border that becomes a big part of who he is and it is very hard to change. In the final chapters of the book, one of the biggest differences between Tom and Chambers was their speech. Besides the differences in the clothing the boys wore, their speech was the first element that would allow another person to make judgments about their race, social class, and education. This would not be a problem in everyday life, but because of the fact that at the end, the boys have to pass for someone they were not raised to be, speech becomes the first and maybe the largest obstacle in passing.
Another border that develops for Tom is the black culture that he is raised in. Since he is assumed to be Roxy’s son, he learns all about black culture and what it means to be black in the United States in the eighteen hundreds. Because of Tom’s light skin color, his racial border is not as hard to cross. In terms of appearance, Tom can pass for a white man, and he actually is. Although he can do that, it is only one part of the puzzle.
What is interesting about Pudd’nhead Wilson is that the ending shows how hard borders are to cross...
View Full Essay
